


Not seen, not heard. Still there.

by Sakilya



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Angst with a debatable Hopeful Ending, Basira Melanie and Daisy are mentioned, Spoilers if you're not up to date MAG 156
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-07
Updated: 2019-10-07
Packaged: 2020-11-26 23:09:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,219
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20938292
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sakilya/pseuds/Sakilya
Summary: Martin had a tendency to forget that someone was in the room while he was working, Basira told him about the multiple times they would be in the same office and he had no idea that she was there.Now, after the not-end, and the price that had to be paid, Jon understood what she meant, and he couldn't imagine how lonely Martin had to feel.





	Not seen, not heard. Still there.

In the end, Martin didn’t die. The world didn’t end either, which was probably a good thing too, and some might think that that piece of information should have been first on the list of “pretty okay results of trying to stop another apocalypse”. It wasn’t. Not for Jon. 

Martin didn’t die, but that didn’t mean they didn’t lose him anyway, or rather, it didn’t mean that he didn’t lose them. 

Jon was starving, that drained not-hunger thrumming through his body. It hadn’t got better since the not-end of the world. The statements kept getting more and more stale. He even disregarded one because it was too similar to another, he took one look and just _ knew _ it was about the distortion, pre-michael, which didn’t carry any relevance to anything they were currently researching. Something about doors and twisting corridors, and the statement-giver had disappeared five years after giving the statement. Nothing new. Nothing nourishing. 

The one he had in front of him now was different. It was… for lack of a better term, fresh, and Jon longed for the feeling of diving down into it, to lose himself in the feelings and fears of someone else, to drag up every single aspect of that person and _ watch _. The recorder was already running, yet he couldn’t start. Not with this much noise in the room. 

Martin seemed to be looking for something on the shelves, softly cursing as he looked down onto his notes and back to shuffling through the papers and books. Jon could probably figure out what he was looking for, could probably find it much easier but something inside him pushed him to stay still, doing nothing else than observe. 

He wished Basira was here, hated and missed the way she dragged reality back into the Archives to keep him in check. 

She had her own problems. This whole situation seemed to have torn at her edges and it was Jon’s time to act in support, to help her keep steady when there wasn’t a clear answer or path to “what do we do now”. He’d had a lot of conversations about that with Daisy, she was also worried and in this place where nothing made sense they pushed forward as much as they could.

For her, for them, he tried to keep himself straight, changed the way he talked as to not compel random people, but sometimes… he just couldn’t help but to indulge. So he allowed himself this moment. 

Martin didn’t react to his stare, didn’t reach up to his neck as he didn’t feel the eyes on him, the way Melanie did. Even without her sight she was still impeccable in snapping her head towards him and demanding him to stop, the few times they met since the not-end. 

Basira had told him, over drinks way too strong for a Tuesday night, that it was bad but at least this was familiar, in an awful way. 

“Just another thing I didn’t think much about,” she had said. “hell, I asked Tim, that was his name right, about it and he confirmed that it wasn’t just something about me. Apparently he and Sasha used to move Martin’s things around just to see how long it took for him to notice what they had done, even notice that they were there with him in the room. Just another clue, right, that didn’t seem important until all...” she waved at nothing in the bar. “...this.” 

A pen fell to the floor. Martin, looking through a book still mumbling to himself, didn’t seem to notice it falling. Jon stepped up, picked the pen up from the floor and for another moment just stood there, a metre away from Martin and still no recognition nor acknowledgment. The noise of Martin’s mumbling and the tape-recorder’s hum were loud. 

“Martin. I’m really sorry.” He started, words he had spoken a lot lately. “I can’t… can’t imagine how you feel, but we’re working on something. We have a direction, at least, something, and, well… I miss you.” He took a deep breath. “You’re still alive, and that… that isn’t nothing. That means this can still change. I’ve even considered talking to Helen, she… she knows about perception and how it can be twisted… but. I’ve, we’ve lost you to two powers already, would it really help getting a third? I really, really wish you could tell me what you think. I don’t want to leave you alone like this.” 

Martin seemed to have stopped, listening for something and then smiled. Jon felt hope, for a single moment, before being reminded that no solution here would come without a struggle. 

“There you are!” Martin reached up to grab a second tape-recorder, one that Jon was sure hadn’t been on the shelf a minute ago, but was apparently already happily recording. “You’re not what I’m looking for, but I guess… you want me to say something? I’m sorry, I honestly doesn’t think I have anything interesting to say. Just trying to find some notes I think connects to this statement? Um, right. It’s about another archive, I think? Which seems relevant...” 

Jon took the pen that he’d picked up, scribbled “**Second shelf on the right of the door, blue folder**” in the margins of the notebook Martin carried and tucked the pen back into Martin’s pocket. Just like every other time, when they tried to interact or communicate to create some sort of connection, desperately trying to find a loophole of any kind, Martin didn’t take notice. 

(“So, ” Melanie had said from her hospital bed after he told her. “like, anything we do, or touch, also becomes undetectable for him? You’re going to hate me suggesting, but have you tried like, punching him?”

“Daisy did, and no, he didn't notice. Thought he had just fallen, she helped him up, and… nothing.”

“Right. Fuck.”) 

Jon sat down at his desk again, and started to look through the notes of the statement still calling him, now more urgent than before. He knew that he could in theory just drag Martin bodily out of his office so he could start recording. Martin wouldn’t realize it, would probably just think he had decided by himself to get some lunch or something. Jon didn’t want to do that, he felt like if he dropped his gaze from Martin for a second, he’d disappear from them completely. 

It must have taken ten minutes, ten minutes of Martin mumbling to himself and his tape-recorder, and Jon slowly feeling like he was losing grip, at this point having to turn the paper upside down to not start reading it. 

“Oh.” Martin’s small-talk to himself paused, and Jon looked up to find him staring at his notebook. Martin went back to the shelf he’d barely skimmed before, and this time found the folder with ease, opening it. He looked back at the desk, gaze landing slightly too far to the right of Jon. 

“I don’t… I don’t think you’re still there, but then again I don’t really… thanks. If you’re somehow there, and I’m not, again, talking to an empty room and the recorder… Jon? Thanks.” 

“Always.” The two tape-recorders were still running, and Jon didn’t care to keep his voice from shaking. 

Martin left, without any indication he’d heard the reply. 

**Author's Note:**

> So. Guess who binged The Magnus Archives in like, two weeks. Excited and terrified about the end of this season, and had to write this before I get my heart broken. I just stuck with that Martin didn’t notice Basira while he was recording (MAG 95, i think), even when she had been there the whole time, and I think it also happened with Tim, even though I can’t remember when. 
> 
> So I thought, well, if he’s going to be both Eye and Lonely, why not that, but MORE.


End file.
